User Reviews - Total: 7

Andrew Shrimptongaatech.co.ukJul 27, 2016

★★★★★

Support

★★★★★

Features

★★★★★

Uptime

★★★★★

Value

★★★★★

They are a star. i have spent one whole day trying to do solve this issue, but your support team solved this many many thanks. Like any job easy when you know how its working :-) First class service that i ever seen. solved my problem in seconds. many many thanks to Host excellence

Jessica WinterApr 16, 2016

★★★★★

Support

★★★★★

Features

★★★★★

Uptime

★★★★★

Value

★★★★★

I have been with host excellence for ages and they have been good until upto a year ago where we had nothing but issues and they keep taking our site down for over-usage. We are have small website with minimum visitors and their support has been extremely slow these days with many times people who have no idea what they are doing. We had enough now of our website constantly taken down without fair reason and now looking to move now ...

Maya Georgievakaya-tech.comFeb 12, 2015

★★★★★

Support

★★★★★

Features

★★★★★

Uptime

★★★★★

Value

★★★★★

I am their client for less than a week. Already had my domain pointing different website, my mail accounts not working. Not to mention that the control panel they are using makes me think this company has no idea what they are doing...

Deb Eberharthsnow.orgDec 8, 2014

★★★★★

Support

★★★★★

Features

★★★★★

Uptime

★★★★★

Value

★★★★★

After five years with them, over the last 8 months it is now terrible.
Support both tickets and chat will only refer you to manager which you never hear from. Seems they now have standard answers that is suppose to work in all situations. Do not host your domains with them. They will not point them. You have access to Nameserver only which is useless. My site was down for no reason.

Christina Wantz wantzuponatime.comMar 25, 2014

★★★★★

Support

★★★★★

Features

★★★★★

Uptime

★★★★★

Value

★★★★★

I've had Host Excellence since December 2005. They offer solutions for both Windows and Apache platforms, a Control Panel with almost everything a web admin could ask for, solid uptime, and great customer support.

I saw a couple other reviews complaining about not being able to log in with FTP and resource use. To that, I have to remind people that Host Excellence is a mid-level traffic site. If you have a site that's going to be getting a huge amount of traffic, resource use *will* be an issue. They specialize in providing great service for smaller markets. That is in the documentation.

Host Excellence has some growing pains over the years. A few years ago, I would have given a lower rating, but they have overcome issues they had with downtime (which was still better than other providers), customer support, and support for the latest CMS'es. Now they make it super easy to get started whether via FTP or through auto-installs. I'm a big fan of using WordPress, and it couldn't be easier.

I saw the low ratings, and my experience couldn't be more different than what the other two (as of today) reviews posted. Thank you.

Eamon Fulcherlabwriteup.comMar 14, 2014

★★★★★

Support

★★★★★

Features

★★★★★

Uptime

★★★★★

Value

★★★★★

I have been a customer for about 8 years now. I think they must have had a change of management because the last 6 months have been hosting hell.

I have had my account suspended for about 8 different reasons, from having too many visitors, to having too many folders, to having someone hack into my account and install malware. I have followed their advice every time - run anti-virus software on all computers that access the control panel or ftp accounts, to upgrading all third party software on my websites, and so on. However, this now happens once every week with the same pattern - they close down my websites and tell me to stop installing malware.

And now they have even blocked my ftp access. I have tried issuing trouble tickets and going online chat for support but they don;t answer my questions. They ask the questions and say that their security department will be dealing with it.

Once ftp access returns (if it does) i will be downloading important data and moving to a new hosting service.

My advice would be to avoid Host Excellence.

Jasonjasonhayes.orgJul 25, 2012

★★★★★

Support

★★★★★

Features

★★★★★

Uptime

★★★★★

Value

★★★★★

I have been a customer of Hostexcellence for about 5 years. I have not had any problems with their service until one day, a few weeks ago they just shut down my sites with no warning.

They claimed that my resource use was too high. So, I worked with them for two weeks, trying to limit resource use - I set throttling policies, I removed any unused files and plugins, I made sure my software (Wordpress) was up to date, I rewrote my robots.txt files ... I even purchased a second account and moved three of my domains over to the new account.

After all that, they continued to arbitrarily shut down my account, leaving my websites and visitors with nothing but an error screen. Up again, down again, up again, down again over those two weeks. I spent dozens of hours, trying to fix issues that I have now figured out are clearly related to bots crawling my sites and their overloading their servers with too many accounts. I can't control bot activity and I can't control how many accounts they put on each server, but they still hold me responsible for "high resource usage."

Rather than addressing their inability to manage their own services and their refusal to help a longtime customer they told me that the only option remaining was to upgrade me to their dedicated server option, which just happens to increase my costs by 700 to 800%.

I would strongly recommend that you avoid Hostexcellence and look elsewhere for your hosting needs.

VISIT HOST

★★★★★

Our Expert Opinion

★★★★★

Support

★★★★★

Features

★★★★★

Uptime

★★★★★

Value

★★★★★

Host Excellence

Host Excellence Introduction

Host Excellence is a US based web hosting company with a focus on shared hosting, although it does also offer a step-up to VPS hosting. The company emerged out of the dot com bubble in the 1990s and has been in the web hosting business for at least 10 years.

Host Excellence is privately owned and run, with corporate locations in four countries around the world (including the USA and Ukraine).

Host Excellence Hosting Plans

There are three competitively-priced shared hosting plans offered by Host Excellence. Each offers unlimited space, bandwidth domains and subdomains.

● The basic plan is a low cost shared hosting option. This provides one free domain name and one dedicated IP. This plan restricts your email resources and the number of databases you can have, and it only allows for Linux based web hosting.
● The business plan includes two free domain names and three dedicated IP addresses. Databases are restricted again, but this plan also allows for more email space and Windows hosting, albeit with an extra monthly charge.
● The ultimate business plan is similar to the business plan but provides three free domain registrations and 15 dedicated IP addresses. This plan allows for even more email resources and only SQL databases are restricted.

VPS hosting plans allow customers to choose between Linux or Windows web hosting and are based on three different VPS options. Each option comes with two dedicated IP addresses, burstable RAM and allows for unlimited domains and subdomains.

There is also an affiliate programme, allowing customers to earn extra money through site referrals. Customers can also purchase an eCommerce SSL certificate, professional web design and a merchant account for transaction processing.

Host Excellence Uptime/Downtime

Host Excellence boasts 100% of satisfied customers and 99.9% uptime. Importantly, this claim is backed by a guarantee. Customers can claim credits for should the uptime fall below 99.9% in any given year (except where downtime is caused by ‘acts of God’ or where Host Excellence do not have any direct influence on events).

Host Excellence does not rent its server space - its owns its own facility. Its data center is based in Ohio and is managed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The company’s server farm is continually optimized and upgraded, and features redundant cooling systems and a back up power supply to ensure it stays up and running.

Another feature of the Host Excellence hosting packages is the ability to purchase CloudFlare to help protect your site from outside attack.

Host Excellence Support

24/7 customer support is provided through live chat, phone lines (notably, the host provides both US and international numbers) and an online ticket centre. Host Excellence also provides a support centre with FAQs, video tutorials and a web hosting manual for customers to find the answers they need. There is also a blog and a status page where the company keeps customers informed of any problems that have arisen.

The Host Excellence Facebook page is not particularly active, and neither is the Twitter account, although the team do respond to customer queries when they arise.

Host Excellence in the News

Despite being a relatively long running business, Host Excellence have attracted little attention in the media, either good or bad.

Host Excellence Control Panel

Host Excellence provides its own custom control panel for customers to use with their shared hosting plan. The control panel seems fairly simple to use and is quick enough to get your head around, but it’s not as slick as something like cPanel.

For VPS hosting customers, Host Excellence offer a choice of cPanel or Plesk to administer their websites.

Host Excellence Extras

All of Host Excellence’s shared hosting packages come with a free site builder, free web templates, a free SSL certificate and a range of free scripts to install, such as Wordpress, Joomla, PHP, Perl and Ruby on Rail.

Free domain names come with each web hosting account and Host Excellence support a range of eCommerce tools such as CubeCart, ZenCart and SugarCRM.

Host Excellence Money Back Guarantee / Cancellation Policy

Host Excellence provides two 100% money-back guarantees for its customers.

● There is a standard 30-day money-back guarantee available to new customers, allowing them to cancel their service and receive a full refund, less any domain name costs. This does include setup fees, but any over-usage costs are not included.

● The Anytime money-back guarantee allows customers to cancel their account and claim back their current month’s fees and all future fees on their plan. To claim a refund, Host Excellence asks the customer to explain the reasons for the cancellation and provide suggestions on how it can improve its services.

Host Excellence Summary

Host Excellence does not offer a vast range of web hosting services, and their plans do not really stick out as offering anything particularly unique. The bespoke control panel may also put some shared hosting customers off. Having said that, 100% customer satisfaction is a bold claim, so the company must be doing something right.

The biggest selling point for Host Excellence is its guarantees which go further than many other hosting companies. The 30 day guarantee is fairly standard, but the Anytime guarantee goes beyond that, offering genuine peace of mind. Together with the 99.9% uptime SLA, Host Excellence customers have comprehensive set of guarantees to fall back on if anything does go wrong.

Host Excellence Hosting Plans

visit host

Hosting Plan

Features

Disk Space

Bandwidth

Price

Business Plan

ASPASP.NETWordPressPHPAnonymous FTPFirewall Protection

Unlimited

Unlimited

$7.95/month

Usual price:

Ultimate Business

ASPASP.NETWordPressPHPAnonymous FTPFirewall Protection

Unlimited

Unlimited

$7.95/month

Usual price:

Basic Plan

WordPressPHPAnonymous FTPFirewall ProtectionWindowsPostgreSQL

Unlimited

Unlimited

$3.95/month

Usual price:

H4 Linux VPS Hosting

DebianPleskDedicated IPCentOSLinuxcPanel

50GB

1.5TB

$54.95/month

Usual price:

H8 Linux VPS Hosting

DebianPleskDedicated IPCentOSLinuxcPanel

100GB

2TB

$89.95/month

Usual price:

H4w Windows VPS Hosting

Windows 2003Windows 2008PleskWindowsDedicated IPUptime Guarantee

50GB

1.5TB

$69.95/month

Usual price:

H8w Windows VPS Hosting

Windows 2003Windows 2008PleskWindowsDedicated IPUptime Guarantee

100GB

2TB

$104.95/month

Usual price:

Homepage

Host Excellence Frequently Asked Questions

Does Host Excellence provide both Linux and Windows hosting?

Host Excellence is a web hosting provider that specializes in both Linux based web host services and Windows based web hosting services.

Will the renewal price be higher than the intro price?

This company does not have any introductory pricing up front, however they offer pricing advantages on their long term contracts.

How about dedicated servers or managed services, do they have those?

If you're looking for dedicated services or managed services, you will have to look at other options outside this company.

Do their hosting plans come with a free domain?

Depending on your needs and which plan you select, you will get either one, two or three domains on certain hosting plans.

Does Host Excellence provide domain registration services and how much does that cost?

You will find domain registrar services on their site, however they are only available to their own customers and not the general public. If you are a customer, you can secure popular domains with just a few clicks and find Top Level Domains (TLD) that are available.

Does Host Excellence have a money back guarantee?

The hosting services from this company come with a thirty day money back guarantee.

Do they provide Virtual Private Server (VPS) services?

You have the choice of eith two Linux VPS options or two Windows VPS options which are staged by system resources on storage, data transfer, CPU and guaranteed RAM.

Does Host Excellence offer phone support?

This company provides around the clock phone support and also have an email support system as well.

In what languages is their customer support available?

Support is only available from this company in English. That goes for whether you are on the web, in their ticketing system, in email, or on the phone.

Where is Host Excellence’s headquarters?

This company is headquartered in the United States out of Columbus, Ohio.

Where do they have its data centers?

The company has its data centers based out of Columbus, Ohio. These are fully owned data centers and the company does not co-locate resources.

What Programming Languages are supported by their services?

Since their shared web hosting platforms are a Linux-based service, the supported programming languages include PHP, Perl, Ruby, and Ruby on Rails.

Does Host Excellence offer reseller options?

The company does not have a reseller program. This is not surprising as many smaller hosting companies have chosen to end their reseller programs, as it can be difficult to keep up.

Is there an affiliate program available?

This company's affiliate program offers excellent payouts for client referrals and the amount you can make is completely uncapped.

Do they provide help with transferring an existing site/domain name?

The company has a service that helps clients move over to their services for an additional fee. Using scripts and personnel resources, they are dedicated to quickly and safely moving your sites over to their platform.

Could I host WordPress on their services?

There are many WordPress installations on their service platform as it is one of the most popular site technologies in the industry. You'll find WordPress in their product suite.

Can I have more one domain per account on their service?

Each of this company's shared web hosting plans allow you to host an unlimited amount of domains.

Does Host Excellence have software available to help build a website easily?

If you need to build a site easily, this company does provide Parallels Site Studio. This software allows you to easily create, edit and deploy professional looking websites without any actual knowledge of how it was put together.

How is the security on their hosting products?

Host Excellence is on the lookout for security issues throughout their infrastructure. With 24 x 7 monitoring and cutting edge firewalls and spam protection, your services are secured by some of the best technologies available.

Is their platform suitable for a Prestashop installation?

PrestaShop installations are fully supported and the resources required to open a site are included on their shared web hosting plans.

Could I auto-transfer Joomla installs with their services?

Joomla! is one of the most powerful and popular Open Source Content Management Systems on the web today. It is used all over the world for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. This company supports and provides this software for its users.

Would it be easy to migrate WordPress installations to their services?

You can migrate WordPress easily with a number of built in tools and utilities, but if you pay for the additional migration service, it can all be done for you.

Are they and e-commerce site provider with features like SSL?

Multiple shopping carts and other e-commerce features are either available on or compatible with their shared web hosting plans. They describe their shared plans as online shop ready and offer a specialized e-commerce SSL feature for existing customers.

Could I host an image-heavy site on their services?

For image heavy websites, you won’t have a problem running these on their plans because they each provide unlimited disk and bandwidth utilization.

Do they support Magento and can they help migrate existing Magento installations?

Magento is not one of their provided installations, however their shared web hosting plans have the technical elements required to deploy it.

Do they provide a control panel, and if so which one?

This company provides Parallels H-Sphere which is a control panel that is designed for web hosting and automation. It is available for both Windows and Linux hosting products.

What payment options does Host Excellence offer like American Express, Visa and PayPal?

Host Excellence accepts all major credit card payment methods like Visa, MasterCard, and Discover. They also accept PayPal.

Does Host Excellence have an uptime guarantee and do they pro-rate for downtime?

This company has a 99.9% uptime guarantee that is backed by service credits for any downtime that is experienced. It is always best to check your terms of service for language that refines this better.

Are there any special security features that come with their services?

As far as additional security items, this company has the paid option of SiteLock security software, which can protect your site from hackers and malware.

Do they offer CDN services on their platform?

Host Excellence does not have a CDN option with their shared web hosting plans.

Does Host Excellence offer monthly services or is there a minimum contract?

Their pricing is set up for monthly or yearly service terms, with yearly service contracts getting an overall price reduction.

Can I get whois domain privacy with them and what is the cost?

WHOIS domain privacy protection is included with their domain names.

What is the backup policy at Host Excellence?

This company backs up their services for their own purposes on their own schedule. There is no access provided to these backups for customers, but assistance could restore files if there were issues that need recovering. Tools to set up backups are included with each plan through their respective control panels and it is recommended that each customer back up their own data regularly.

Which package is most appropriate for my five websites?

Any of this company's services could easily handle a five web site deployment as you have unlimited options on each of their shared web hosting plans.

How many email addresses do I get how much storage do they allow for email?

You can have as many email accounts as you need as this company's plans allow unlimited email accounts in number and the space is dictated by these same unlimited parameters. Anytime you see the word 'unlimited' however, you should review their terms of service for clarification on how your email needs fit into their service plans.

Do I get unlimited bandwidth and space?

Host Excellence provides an unlimited tier of resources, where there are no limits on disk space or bandwidth. However the provider is the ultimate decider of what kind of usage is acceptable on their systems, so review terms of service for limitations.

Do they offer discounts for students non-profits or schools?

This company does not regularly provide promotions that are specifically tailored to students, non-profits, and schools.

Does Host Excellence provide Google AdWords credit with signups?

This company does not offer any Google promotions or advertising credits of any kind with their service plans.